COLLEGE FOOTBALL / GENE WOJCIECHOWSKI : Whine Doesn’t Come With This Coach’s Blowout Losses

Consummate sportsman that he is, Coach Gene McDowell, whose Division I-AA Central Florida team faces No. 1-ranked Florida State at Tallahassee on Saturday, has issued a pregame promise:

“Let me say that we’re definitely not going to run the score up on them,” said McDowell before breaking into a giggle.

He knows Florida State is going to bury Central Florida the same way the Seminoles beat North Carolina State by 60 points last week and Duke by 44 points the game before that. The difference is, he doesn’t whine about it.

“I don’t believe we’re going to get dominated any worse than any of the other teams FSU has played already. But if we do, it won’t be their fault. It will be ours,” said McDowell, a former Seminole star who was the school’s first football All-American and spent 10 years on Coach Bobby Bowden’s Florida State staff.

“I don’t agree that the head coach of a dominant team should have a burning desire to keep the score down. Coaches who complain, they know ahead of time how good these teams will be. If they have a problem with that, then they shouldn’t schedule them.”

Central Florida was originally scheduled to play Auburn, but when the Tigers asked out of the commitment, McDowell, then the athletic director too, happily replaced them with Florida State. With Central Florida making the jump from I-AA to I-A next season, McDowell doesn’t mind the experience, the pay day or the likely rout.

“I wanted to play this game,” he said. “I still want to play this game. I’m looking forward to this game.”

ROUTS--PART II

OK, so Florida State, Nebraska, Texas A&M;, Florida, USC, Penn State, Colorado, Virginia, Georgia and Notre Dame--10 of the top 25 teams--won by an average of 37.6 points Saturday. This is news? This is why Michigan interim Coach Lloyd Carr angrily said in a postgame news conference that he is “sick of guys who run the score up,” and that it’s “an indictment of our profession. . . . I think it’s sickening?”

Nothing against Carr, who wasn’t the acting head coach at the time, but Michigan beat Houston, 61-7, in 1992 and Minnesota, 58-7, in 1993 and nobody seemed too outraged in Ann Arbor. Anyway, that’s not the point.

None of Saturday’s routs, with the exception of Florida’s 62-37 victory over Tennessee, should have come as a total surprise. Before those 10 games, the only opponent of those top 10 teams with a winning record was the Volunteers. The combined record of all 10 teams was 8-11, with three victories coming against Division I-AA programs.

Also, the same thing happened last season. Florida State, Nebraska, Texas A&M;, Florida, Penn State and Colorado won their first games by an average of 32.8 points, their second games by an average of 34.6 points and their third games by an average of 27.6.

“Let’s accept that it’s the modern age and football has changed,” Bowden said. “Rockne is gone.”

But is Knute turning over in his grave because some coaches might be padding leads to improve their teams’ rankings?

“I think there’s definitely something to that,” said Central Florida’s McDowell. “Probably until they get a playoff system in I-A football, the people are going to try to impress the pollsters, and you can’t blame them for that. All of us should be so lucky to be good enough to do that.”

Said Colorado Coach Rick Neuheisel, whose team beat Northeast Louisiana, 66-14: “The bottom line is, I think coaches have to keep it reasonable. . . . But you also have an obligation to let [your reserves] play the brand of football in which you practice. You just don’t go out there and tell them to take a knee.”

Nebraska, 77-28 winner over Arizona State, played nearly 100 players Saturday. Neuheisel pulled his starters after the first drive of the second half. Texas A&M; Coach R.C. Slocum substituted freely in the second half of the Aggies’ 52-9 victory over Tulsa. Everyone did except Mr. Class, Florida Coach Steve Spurrier, who never replaced starting quarterback Danny Wuerffel.

WITH AN ASTERISK

Lou Holtz didn’t coach last Saturday’s blowout victory over Vanderbilt. You know it. Holtz knows it. Touchdown Jesus knows it.

Thing is, the record books don’t know it. And never will.

Despite his absence because of disk surgery, Notre Dame officials have decided that Holtz, not interim Coach Bob Davie, will be credited with Irish victories this season. That means Holtz got the 201st victory of his career by watching TV at home.

This isn’t the first time this has happened at Notre Dame. Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy missed games as Irish coaches but had the victories added to their totals. And, in something of a Notre Dame medical tradition, both Rockne, who suffered from phlebitis, and Leahy, who had pancreas problems, were treated at the Mayo Clinic, where Holtz underwent his operation last week.

Holtz has already partially returned to work. Beginning Sunday, he was back at the Irish football offices on a strict four-hour-only schedule. He wears a neck brace, can’t turn his head, can’t drive, but is hell on the VCR remote.

Holtz’s recovery plan, which isn’t necessarily the same as his doctors’ plan, calls for the 58-year-old coach to be in the Notre Dame Stadium press box for Saturday’s game against No. 13 Texas and on the sideline for the next week’s game at No. 8 Ohio State. The game means a lot to Holtz, who grew up in Ohio and was an assistant on Coach Woody Hayes’ Buckeye staff.

As for Davie, he didn’t get his name in the record books, but Notre Dame’s players presented him and the other Irish coaches with game balls afterward.

MIXED MESSAGES

When is a “dismissal” really a suspension? When it’s at Nebraska, otherwise known as Steve Howe U., home now of the four-strikes-and-you’re-out policy.

Despite his arrest for misdemeanor assault against his former girlfriend, despite violating team rules three times, despite needing anger-control therapy. . . . Cornhusker star I-back Lawrence Phillips might rejoin the team “within a month or so,” said Coach Tom Osborne.

“I really feel it’s important in his case that he has football out there, because football really is kind of what holds everything together for him,” said Osborne of his former Heisman Trophy hopeful. “It’s what will cause him, I think, to seek treatment and to really work at it and try to make some changes. Without football, I don’t know if those things would happen.”

Reaction: Osborne truly means well, but to bring Phillips back this season cheapens the Nebraska program and does Phillips, to say nothing of college football, a disservice.

If football is “what holds everything together” for the junior running back, then Phillips needs more than the thrill of wearing shoulder pads every Saturday. He needs a reality check.

What happens if he tears up a knee? Then what? When exactly does he deal with life without football?

Now seems as good of time as any. If we’re Osborne--and it’s no treat these days--we make sure Phillips gets his help, pays his penalty and then we welcome him back to the team . . . next season.

THE REST

Tempers are getting testy at Alabama, where NCAA probation, too many close games and now a 20-19 defeat by Arkansas has exposed some Crimson Tide nerves. Quarterback Brian Burgdorf was booed two weeks ago (and Alabama won ), which is nothing compared to the grumbling done by Tide players after Arkansas pulled off the upset.Offensive tackle Joel Holliday said Alabama’s attack, which has gone from 33 points in the season opener to 24 to 19, is “very predictable.” Even Burgdorf popped off, telling reporters, “It’s really hard on the passing game when you wait until it’s third down to throw the ball.” . . . New grass field, old Missouri Tigers. Missouri is 1-2, but at least Coach Larry Smith’s team no longer plays on the worst field in college football--that dreadful artificial Omniturf at Faurot Field (since replaced by actual grass). Said Smith of the old stuff: “It was like a Brillo pad stretched over pavement on a parking lot.”

Murderer’s Row of opponents, it wasn’t, but Kansas is 3-0 after beating Cincinnati, North Texas and Texas Christian in 12 days. . . . Maryland is ranked (25th in the AP poll) for the first time this decade and is 3-0 for the first time since 1986. And the Terrapins have done it without starting quarterback Scott Milanovich, serving a four-game suspension for gambling. Louisiana State’s No. 18 ranking is its first since 1989. . . . Penn State safety Jeff Davis hired a plane for $200 and had it circle Beaver Stadium with a message during the third quarter of last week’s game against Temple. “Heather H., Will You Marry Me? No. 42.” After the game, Heather Hamberger said yes and Davis slipped an engagement ring on her finger.

Jamie Howard, who had three interceptions returned for fourth- quarter touchdowns in last season’s heartbreaking loss to Auburn, was carried off the field by his LSU teammates after Saturday night’s upset of the then-No. 5 Tigers. So affected was Howard by the 1994 loss to Auburn--and the six interceptions he threw that day--that he considered quitting the team. Instead, he returned this season and, by special request of LSU captain Sheddrick Wilson, was named co-captain for the Auburn game. . . . Hampton beat Grambling, which means Coach Eddie Robinson still needs two victories to reach 400. If Grambling beats Central State at home, Robinson can get No. 400 the next week at Dallas against, ta-da, Prairie View. If all goes wrong for Prairie View--and there’s no reason to think it won’t--the Panthers could set an NCAA record for most consecutive defeats (51) in the same game Robinson gets victory No. 400. . . . Life after quarterback Steve McNair: Alcorn State is 0-2-1. . . . Strange but true: Vanna White, star letter turner, will tentatively be on the Husky Stadium field for the coin toss at Saturday’s Army-Washington game. Later, during halftime, about 72,000 fans are supposed to yell, “Wheel . . . of . . . Fortune!” for an intro to an upcoming show.

Top 10

As selected by staff writer Gene Wojciechowski

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No. Team Record 1. Nebraska 3-0 2. Florida State 3-0 3. Florida 3-0 4. Texas A&M; 2-0 5. Michigan 4-0 6. Ohio State 2-0 7. Colorado 3-0 8. USC 2-0 9. Penn State 2-0 10. Oklahoma 2-0

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Waiting list: 11. Auburn (2-1); 12. Texas (2-0); 13. Tennessee (2-1); 14. Virginia (3-1); 15. Oregon (3-0); 16. UCLA (2-1); 17. Kansas State (2-0); 18. Notre Dame (2-1); 19. Georgia (2-1); 20. LSU (2-1); 21. Miami (1-1); 22. Arizona (2-1); 23. Washington (1-1); 24. Maryland (3-0); 25. Alabama (2-1).